


Pools of sorrow, waves of joy

by petalboy



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Paranormal, abstract shit, no relationships but just know that will is gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 10:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11416233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petalboy/pseuds/petalboy
Summary: Will Graham works as a paranormal investigator of sorts, dealing with the spirits of the dead that refuse to move on to the afterlife. One night he gets on his boat without looking back.





	Pools of sorrow, waves of joy

Will loved the taste of the ocean breeze as he sailed out to sea in his little boat more than anything else. It was uplifting and refreshing. It’s not that it made him feel alive exactly, but it made him feel like everything was going to be okay.

He’d take his little sailboat out as much as he could between jobs, when he wasn’t busy dealing with the dead. He’d been working as a Paranormal Investigator of sorts, something like a Medium. He knew it was an unusual field of work, mostly discredited as a pseudoscience, but he couldn’t blame anyone who thought he was delusional. Will himself wouldn’t have given a second thought to the existence of ghosts a couple of years ago, but there had been a bizarre series of events in his life that had convinced him otherwise. Oddly enough, at this point he couldn’t even remember what it was like before he accepted the existence of the paranormal.

There was a surprisingly large amount of people who requested his help and expertise with getting rid of hauntings – or, more accurately, helping the spirits of dead people move on to the afterlife. That was the real problem. Ghosts didn’t exist randomly; they were the result of deceased individuals not being able to let go of their life, stuck in the limbo between the living and the dead. Usually they didn’t cause much of a problem – most people couldn’t even tell they were living with ghosts – but there were always the ones that let their bitterness or sorrow get a hold of them, and so they’d wreak havoc on the living.

Tonight he’d gotten a call from a man in his thirties living in a modest apartment near the docks, a short walk away from where Will had his boat. It seemed cliché that most of his jobs were at night, but this was due to the fact that most people were out and about during the day. They’d only return home in the evening, which is when they would notice they weren’t alone.

Will rang the doorbell and he was greeted by an ordinary-looking man, clearly suffering from a lack of sleep. He nodded and entered the house, closing his eyes as the usual sense of familiarity with the ghosts creeped up on him. It was almost as if he had known them personally – he understood them, which is why he was so good at his job. He took off his backpack (showmanship was for people who couldn’t actually do what they claimed) and took out a single candle.

“Could you turn the lights off, please?” The dark, paired with the soft flickering of the candlelight helped him relax and concentrate.

He didn’t sit. Instead, he slowly paced around the room, showing himself placid and non-confrontational, taking in all of the emotions surrounding him. He could feel abandonment, nostalgia, regret, anger… but also a longing for connection – hope.

_What’s wrong? I’m not going to hurt you._

The apartment doors all creaked and shut themselves at the same time. Will could feel the fear and confusion of the ghost. There was a soft rattling near the stove.

_Let me help you._

Then he heard it. It came from inside his head, the shrieking.

“ _PLEASE LET GO. LET GO, LET GO, LET GO._ ”

Will felt a stab of sorrow at the desperation in the voice.

_I’m going to help you. Just talk to me._

_“LEAVE! LET US GO.”_

_I understand your pain. We need to help you move on. You have to accept your fate. It’s done, let yourself rest._

_“PLEASE!”_

_Give in to the calm, the quiet._

_“…We’ll miss you.”_

There was silence again and a sudden warmth that overtook the room, a feeling of pleasantness, the kind of warmth you feel after a cold winter finally breaks.

“Is that it? Is it gone?” the man asked, eyes wide.

“You shouldn’t have any problems from now on.” Will picked up the candle and blew it out, putting it back in his backpack.

* * *

The waves hit the hull of his boat, the patterned splashing lulling him as he closed his eyes and felt the constant dip and rise of the deck beneath him. There was something mystical about the sea and the isolation he experienced once he was far enough from land. Every time he sailed out on his little boat, he’d feel the horizon beckoning him to get closer and closer, to sail away and never return. It made his skin tingle and the hair on the back of his neck stand on end when he felt the familiar presence pulling him further and further out to sea.

As he looked out onto the misty green horizon, characteristic of a cloudy day, he felt so tempted to sail to the edge, to leave everything behind and disappear into the unknown. It was the same every single time, but each time he was dragged back to land by his own indecision. Far into the ocean, when he felt he was at the point of no return, when everything became calm and the wind settled and the water became still like some eerie limbo between dream and reality, he would succumb to his own fear and attachments and turn back around.

He sat up and walked to the side of his boat, looking over the edge at his own reflection in the water. He knew he wasn’t going to get any answers from staring down at a patch of sea, but he stayed that way for a long time, until the raindrops started dotting the surface and finally dissolving his image.

* * *

 The café was cozy. The dim amber lighting, the soft murmur of quiet conversations in the background, and the small but comfortable booths made Will feel at ease. He was deep in conversation with an older, middle-aged woman whom he’d just helped out with clearing her house of a little boy’s spirit.

“The thing I’ve noticed with these people – ghosts, is that they’re not just senselessly evil or destructive,” he said, having a hard time suppressing his passion on the subject. “People are terrified of ghosts because they don’t understand them, they don’t see them as what they once were: people. They can’t imagine them as complex beings with emotions, with consciousness. Most of the time, all they need is to be understood, to be helped out with processing their loss and moving on. Of course, when people react so adversely to their presence they’re also frightened– they panic.” He paused briefly to take a sip of his coffee and carried on, “Or sometimes they’ve simply been alone, stuck between the living and the dead for so long they don’t even understand what’s going on anymore, they can’t trust their own thoughts and they just sort of… go mad.”

The woman, Mara, observed him intently. There was a moment of silence between them before she spoke up, “How did you learn all of this, exactly? Or is it just a conclusion you arrived at for peace of mind?”

Will shrugged, “I’d like to think I’m not fooling myself into believing things for the sake of peace of mind.” Another silence, “Why peace of mind anyways? I’m not a ghost advocate. Not actively, at least. I mean, I try to be considerate and respectful myself, but there’s really no intrinsic advantage in trying to humanise ghosts. I just do what works best for my job, what I’ve seen and experienced works best and proves itself to be true.”

“How has it proven itself to be true?”

Will fiddled with his mug. “It just does. They speak to you, they show awareness, emotions. Just by walking into the room you can… feel. What they’re going through. It’s not that complicated, it’s pretty damn evident if you just have the will to be patient and listen.”

He looked back up at Mara. She was still just observing him, unblinking.

“I’m aware most people don’t hear them talk. That’s because they don’t open themselves up to the possibility, they lack empathy. Or at least as much as you can lack for someone you don’t even know is sentient like you are.” He paused. “You think I’m hearing voices, making it up in my head?”

“I just think you’re really good at your job.”

“You can tell at least part of the ghost’s feelings and humanity does get through to people. The way their expressions turn somber when they walk into the room, or how people who are particularly sensitive to outside input look like they’ve aged ten years just from sharing a house with a spirit that projects so much grief. Even if they can’t talk to them, it’s definitely there.”

“Do you think you’re a particularly sympathetic person?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Why do you think you got so good at perceiving the imperceptible?”

Will went ahead and took a long sip of his coffee, because the truth was he didn’t know. It was simply part of who he was now. “It’s just what I do.”

If he was completely honest, he was aware that the consideration and understanding he had for the living dead was very much a deep sympathy. The thing was, he didn’t want to think about why. He didn’t want to deal with the reasons for his affinity with death.

* * *

 Will opened the door to his house. It was around 2:00 AM, everything was quiet and dark. He threw his keys to the side, kicked the door shut behind him and shrugged off his coat. He took a couple of blind steps and he felt it.

A soft hand on his shoulder. He stopped walking. He wasn’t startled at all, quite the opposite; he was serene, at ease, like he’d been expecting it. His muscles relaxed, the built up tension leaving his body from his neck all the way down. He didn’t turn around to greet whoever it was, because he knew it wouldn’t make a difference. They were everywhere.

This time the voice was soft-spoken and soothing. It was barely a whisper but Will could hear it clearly. It talked to him, speaking slowly and telling him what he needed to know. He stood there in the dark with his eyes closed, listening carefully and letting the atmosphere of the room envelop him. Everything made sense, it was all so obvious. Will opened his eyes. He put his coat back on and walked out of the house, not bothering to lock the door behind him.

It was chilly. He could see his breath in front of him, swirling into the night. Will made his way to the docks on foot, passing street after empty street. The only thing he heard were his footsteps and his own heartbeat. After a while he took off his coat and set it down on a bench, leaving it for someone who actually needed it to take with them. He got to the docks and started untying his boat. His mind was quiet, only concentrated on the task at hand.

Once the boat was free he set out, slowly drifting away from the shore. He picked up speed easily, the wind was blowing strong and steady. As he navigated farther and farther away from land there was less artificial light illuminating his surroundings, which made it possible for the natural darkness of the ocean to take over. However, as he continued sailing towards the horizon a soft glow seemed to emanate from deep beneath the water, just enough so that he wasn’t in pitch-black darkness.

He was getting closer to the point of no return, he could feel it pulling at him, drawing him in with the strength of the sun, faster, faster, the wind a deafening roar blasting against his face, his heart hammering in his chest, palms sweating from the adrenaline pumping through him— and it then it was quiet. Everything stopped, everything went still. The wind, the ocean, his own heart.

The soft emerald glow was in the air, casting hazy shadows on the deck of his boat. He slowly walked up to the bow, feeling like he was hovering above the ground. He felt lighter than ever, more at peace than he’d ever been. Stopping at the tip of the boat, he took a second to breathe in and let the sky touch his skin, and he stepped off.

**Author's Note:**

> basically I wrote fanfiction as part of my uni application, and I got in, so that's probably the last I'll be writing of any fic cause it's just too damn hard !!! honestly props to everyone who writes of their own accord. (unbeta'd cause i havent read this in over a year)
> 
> anyways, turns out Will was dead the whole time ooop
> 
> the title's from the song across the universe, I like the version by jim sturgess for Will


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